Slum dwellers encroaching on lands claim entitlement to free housing, but no such relief for salaried people: Bombay HC

A developer or developing authority also pays transit rent to eligible residents who vacate their premises for redevelopment or rehabilitation purposes till a permanent alternate accommodation is available to them.

The HC refused interim relief to a slum dwellers society seeking cancellation of appointment of the developer. A division bench of Justice Gautam S Patel and Justice Kamal R Khata passed an order on November 10 in a plea by Vaibhavi SRA CHS Ltd, a society of 286 slum dwellers from Jerbai Wadia Road, Parel, Central Mumbai, where a slum redevelopment project is planned on over 7,500 square metres of area.

Senior advocate Milind Sathe and advocate Abhinav Chandrachud for the petitioner society claimed they had been without transit rent from September 2021, and the amount due in arrears was over Rs 10 crore.

Advocate Simil Purohit for Landmark Developers claimed that the builder would pay the transit rent due until December, 2023, but it must be subjected to approval of petitioners society, to the plans proposed by developers. The HC noted the petitioner society had earlier objected to continuing with Landmark Developers and the plans it had proposed.

“The petition brings to the forefront the enormous inequity caused in this city but in unanticipated ways. We have here demands from slum dwellers that because they have encroached on lands both public and private, because they are trespassers, therefore they have an entitlement to a reward of not only of free-of-cost accommodation and high value marketable assets, but in the meantime large amounts as transit rent,” the bench noted.

It went on to state, “They are, we are told, in a position to make these demands and it does not matter, and should not matter, to anyone, even a Court of equity, that there is no such provision made for salaried persons working in the city (and that includes salaried employees of the High Court and Government).”

The bench said that “it is these salaried employees who routinely draw on whatever sources they have including their Provident Funds and other savings, and who have to pay enormous amounts towards the EMI in loan repayments. Nobody gives them a free house. Nobody gives them transit rent or any form of financial relief.”

Instead, we have a society that has apparently decided, not only that it must get large amounts as transit rent, and this must be paid even to those who deliberately delayed the project, HC said. It added the society went to ‘quite a fantastical extent’ that now it will decide the location, siting and even the physical built form of the rehab units.

“There is such a thing as going too far. We do not believe that these societies have this spectrum of rights,” Justice Patel noted, and refused to grant interim relief sought by the petitioner.

After the petitioner opposed the developer’s submission of all transit rent arrears to be paid in instalments, the bench said it was not “prepared to make any orders” in that regard. The bench stayed further proceedings before the Apex Grievance Redressal Committee (AGRC) in the case till further hearing on January 29.